Amid what has been called the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, the immigration minister says Canada has taken in "approximately 2,500" Syrian refugees to date.

"The numbers grow quickly through private sponsorship and government assistance. We also have brought over 20,000 Iraqi refugees," Chris Alexander said.

The plight of Syrian refugees was brought into the spotlight today after a picture of a drowned child circulated on social media. The boy was found lying face down on a Turkish beach. It is believed he was three years old. Turkish media are reporting his mother and older brother also died trying to reach Europe.

More than four million refugees have fled Syria since the crisis began in 2011. There are also more than seven million internally displaced people within Syria.

Migrants from Syria queue for a bus in a village near Presevo, Serbia last week. The issue of what Canada should do to help alleviate the crisis of refugees and other desperate migrants in Europe was raised on the campaign trail in Canada Wednesday. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)

"They had to be dragged kicking and screaming to actually admit 1,300 refugees," he said. "They couldn't tell us for a full year … how many refugees had come. At the same time Germany, Sweden, other countries were taking in tens of thousands."

Former Liberal cabinet minister John McCallum called the Conservative response to the Syrian refugee crisis a "total disgrace," and made the comparison with Progressive Conservative leaders Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney who McCallum said were part of a tradition of Canadian generosity to refugees.

Family of children found on Turkish beach were trying to come to Canada

The two small boys whose bodies washed up on a Turkish beach Wednesday were Kurdish refugees from Kobane, Syria, whose family had been desperately trying to emigrate to Canada.

Galip Kurdi, five, and his three-year-old brother Aylan died along with their mother Rehan and eight other refugees when their boat overturned in a desperate flight from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

The boys’ father, Abdullah, survived. His family says his only wish now is to return to Kobane with his dead wife and children, bury them, and be buried alongside them.

“I heard the news at five o’clock in this morning,” Teema Kurdi, Abdullah’s sister, said Wednesday. The telephone call came from Ghuson Kurdi, the wife of another brother, Mohammad. “She had got a call from Abdullah, and all he said was, my wife and two boys are dead.”

Teema, a Vancouver hairdresser who emigrated to Canada more than 20 years ago, said Abdullah and Rehan Kurdi and their two boys were the subject of a “G5” privately sponsored refugee application that was rejected by Citizenship and Immigration in June, owing to the complexities involved in refugee applications from Turkey.

The family had two strikes against them – like thousands of other Syrian Kurdish refugees in Turkey, the UN would not register them as refugees, and the Turkish government would not grant them exit visas.

“I was trying to sponsor them, and I have my friends and my neighbours who helped me with the bank deposits, but we couldn’t get them out, and that is why they went in the boat. I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is horrible the way they treat Syrians there,” Teema said.

Fin Donnelly, the MP for Port Moody-Coquitlam, said he’d hand-delivered the Kurdis’ file to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander earlier this year. Alexander said he would look into it, Donnelly said, but the Kurdis’ application was rejected in June. Alexander could not be reached for comment.

“This is horrific and heartbreaking news,” Donnelly said. “The frustration of waiting and the inaction has been terrible.”

Canada and Turkey have long been at loggerheads over the bottleneck blocking Syrian refugees in Turkey from finding their way to Canada. It is not uncommon for Kurds in Syria to be arbitrarily denied passports, and to have great difficulty registering as refugees with the UNHCR.

The Turkish government refuses to issue exit visas to unregistered refugees not holding valid passports.

Conservative candidate Chris Alexander has suspended his campaign for re-election in the riding of Ajax, Ont.

Alexander, a former diplomat, was first elected in 2011. He became Stephen Harper's immigration minister in 2013.

During a Wednesday panel appearance on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, he defended the Harper government's response to the Syrian refugee crisis, and said the media had failed to "put it in the headlines where it deserves to be."

Alexander cancelled a Thursday morning media appearance and is returning to Ottawa to focus on his ministerial responsibilities.

Alexander by blaming the media for not publicising the Syrian refugee crisis is admitting that he Conservative Government does nothing to solve a problem unless there is media storm on the issue and political points can be scored in the media.

The media, having extremely short attention span is focusing on the refugees instead of what is happening where they come from that is causing the problem. That being militant islam. The problem will reoccur wherever the refugees end up.

The media, having extremely short attention span is focusing on the refugees instead of what is happening where they come from that is causing the problem. That being militant islam. The problem will reoccur wherever the refugees end up.

May i remind the lefties that those people are responsible for their own troubles? Why should we bail them out and wait for it to start here?

You got a link for that?? All these people that 'are on the move' wouldn't be on the move if their countries didn't have bombs dropping on them, labeled by some NATO member.
Designed famines go along with that, but Canadians and Americans get gas at $0.10 less than if they let people have a good portion of what is is worth.
When people say they care things change, so far the only change is it is getting worse, all for a piece of paper that says 'the west' deserves more than anybody else.

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Israel also has a problem with militant islam but there are no refugees coming from Israel.Wonder why that is?

You got all the answers don't you?

A growing exodus of young Israelis to Berlin has not only shocked Israel’s far right leadership but has highlighted the growing disillusionment with Zionism among Israel’s younger generation.As Israeli commentators noted, the trend would encourage the late Israeli leader, Yitzhak Rabin to turn in his grave. He once described those who fled Israel as a “cascade of wimps” and a “fallout of cowards.” Ravit Hecht, a columnist with Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, has blamed ultranationalists for the exodus, and there may well be substance to her claim. “Berlin is a lovely city, but it is sucking away all the forces that we desperately need here, especially now,” she wrote. Of course, it’s not Berlin that’s doing the sucking, but Israel, in a different sense of the word.
- See more at: Tens of Thousands of Jews Leaving Israel for Germany | American Free Press

Sort of like the US, 10,000 millionaires leave the country and 10,000 poor people from Mexico com in and that means there is no exodus from the US either

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Israel also has a problem with militant islam but there are no refugees coming from Israel.Wonder why that is?

The only ones that don't run away are the ones throwing the bombs around. You ever have any head injuries, serious or otherwise?

It's hard to know how many refugees are coming simply to get out of Syria, North Africa, etc, but equally, it's hard to know how many are coming to fulfill the doctrine of Al Hijrah (the doctrine of Islamic migration).